


PacMaslow's Pac-hierarchy of pac-needs

by Slant



Category: Pac-Man (Video Games), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Gen, Mad Scientists, mad social scientists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reserchers at the maze facillity try to come to terms with their incomprehensible job. And obsess about Pacman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	PacMaslow's Pac-hierarchy of pac-needs

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I should admit up front that this was inspired by Reading With A Vengeance's bitter, snark-filled review rather than by reading the book. 
> 
> http://readingwithavengeance.tumblr.com/tagged/the-maze-runner/chrono
> 
> Still, this is its own thing, and it might be possible to enjoy it if you don't know the review.

"Well, that was an utter failure."  
"Yep."  
"Turns out if you put a bunch of bright kids in an artificial environment where everything they need is supplied for them, they do bollocks-all."  
"Well, the prior work shows that if you give them anything less, they start maiming each other."  
"Dude, _Lord of the Flies_ is not 'prior work'"  
"Got us some freaky-ass social structures, though."  
"Like the bit where they don't tell newcomers stuff just to mess with them?"  
"It was pretty interesting how quickly they picked that up."  
"No much of a way to develop the child-Übermensch to save us all though."  
"It's like Ender's Game if Ender spent a paragraph at the end of every chapter losing at Pacman."  
"Good way to waste the time of a dozen reasonably bright researchers who might have had something to contribute though."  
"Reasonably bright? Hey..."  
"Sorry. Eleven reasonably bright researchers and you."  
"Fuck you."  
"Grading them on their maze-navigating skills seems pretty foolish now."  
"Any of the Pac-people would kick all their arses. Not even one of the cool ones like Pacman Jr. Chomp-Chomp would own these dweebs, and he only existed in 'Christmas Comes to Pac-Land.'"  
"Fuck 'em. Fuck you. Fuck everything for making me think of _Christmas Comes to Pac-Land_."  
"I read an fMRI study of people exposed to the Pacman animated series that proved the existence of seven forms of baffled anger never before reported."  
"It's our fault. There's no reason to leave the glade except bravado and social standing, and they can get more social standing by hiding round the corner and then bragging about it than they could by finding the exit."  
"I guess that just about wraps it up for PacMaslow's Pac-hierarchy of pac-needs."  
"That... wasn't a theory that needed disproving; that was more a hallucinatory episode that you had and then wrote up like it was a paper."  
"Well, message has come down the line at last. We're sending in Ms. Pacman."  
"I can see the Science article now: _Breakthrough in messiah development through introduction of a telepathic individual to a a maze-centric microsociety_."  
"A gender-segregated microsociety."  
"A gender-segregated prepubescent microsociety."  
"Like our contracts let us publish."  
"We can if there's nothing commercially sensitive, and trust me, nothing here is valuable."  
"Do you guys ever worry, like how did this get past the ethics committee?"  
"It's not like we're going all _Pac-Man Battle Royale_ on them, or level 256ing them."  
"Or making them watch the Pacman animated series."  
"Level 256 was a formative experience for me."  
There was a moment's silence.  
"Sorry man."  
"Still, monsters, and children."  
"Waiver-signing children."  
"I'm more worried about how it got past the budget committee. Like, how does anyone expect this to payout?"

**Author's Note:**

> PacMaslow's Pac-hierarchy of pac-needs are of course
> 
>  **Self-actualization**  
>  Power pellets, Fruit  
>  **Esteem**  
>  Avoiding the Pac-Man animated series, Intermission animations  
> Warp tunnels  
> Pac-dots  
>  **Safety needs**  
>  Avoiding monsters  
>  **Physiological needs**  
>  Movement, Mazes
> 
> Level 256 exists to remind you that all things must die.


End file.
